The Miser's Curse
by PhoenixCaptain
Summary: The Miser's Curse - a system of caves, nestled into the farthest reaches of the village, deeper and darker than anything else in the world. But if you should brave these caves, a vast treasure awaits within. One young man tries to claim this treasure for himself, but in the process he stumbles upon a pirate who will change his life - and not exactly for the better.


The mournful caw of a lone raven was an omen of things to come. A young man walking past stopped for a moment to glance up to the bird, perched atop the gray branch of a dead tree. His bright green eyes met its shrewd black ones, and the two of them stared at each other for naught more than a single second before the animal took flight. The young man continued on his journey almost immediately afterward, thinking nothing of the short encounter. He wrapped his threadbare brown cloak tightly around his body in a vain attempt to protect himself from the cold. Each breath came out as a visible puff of white that hung suspended in the air for a second before it dissipated into nothingness. His trek across the snowy cobblestone streets seemed to last far too long, and with each step that he took, the cold only tightened its cruel grip around him.

After what felt like hours of passing by small houses and shops, all closely bunched together and lining the sides of the wide street, he stopped in front of one building in particular - a small one-story affair, squat and fat in structure with its thin roof sagging under the weight of the snow piled atop it. The windows were shrouded in snow and frost, but the young man thought he could see the warm glow of a fire blazing from inside. He swallowed, took a step toward the old wooden door, and tentatively rapped his knuckles on its warped surface.

It felt like an eternity before the old door finally creaked open, its hinges crying out in protest with every small movement it made. Across the threshold and standing just inside the warmth of the house was an old man, hunched over and supporting his frail frame with a gnarled wooden walking stick. Instantly his teeth began to chatter from the cold, and he motioned the young man inside. "Come in, come in," he spoke hurriedly, waving wildly as he hobbled backward to permit his guest entry.

The young man stepped inside as he was directed, and the old man rushed to shut the door behind him. "What brings you here, William?" the old man asked as he turned again to face his visitor.

The young man pushed back his hood, revealing a mess of long, shaggy hair that was so light blonde it might have looked like silver. His green eyes scanned the small room that he stood in. A fireplace sat at one end, and a merry fire danced within. Surrounding it were plenty of plush chairs and couches - or rather, they had once been plush, but now they were only ragged and their middles sagged inward to an uncomfortable-looking degree. Beside one of the chairs was a small wooden table, piled high with books of all kinds. Everything was covered in a layer of dust, making the place look almost uninhabited, if it weren't for the fireplace crackling across the room and the old man standing nearby the closed door.

"I know you're in need of someone to help you keep your house in order," William said, turning to face the old man. "So I've decided that I can do that for you."

The old man beamed, and he began to hobble over to one of his old, ugly couches. "Have a seat, William, have a seat." He sat down on one end of the couch, leaving room for the young man to sit next to him.

William, however, didn't move from his spot. He shook his head and said, "But I'd need something in return for my help, you know..."

"Of course, of course you do. Nobody works for free." The old man nodded knowingly, a faint smile on his face. "How much would you like me to pay you?"

"No, not that kind of payment... I was wondering if you'd mind, well, helping my father."

The other man's smile instantly faded, swiftly turning into a frown. "I'm sorry, but... you know how things get in winter. So many people are sick, and purchasing the medicine to treat them is expensive. Although the thought of you taking care of all my housework for me is a nice one, it just won't be enough to pay for me to treat your father. His illness is too expensive to take care of that easily, I'm afraid."

William gritted his teeth. Truly, winter was a terrible time of year. When the snows came they often brought death with them; it was altogether too easy to catch a fatal illness in the merciless, biting cold, and altogether too difficult to afford a cure. "Please, doctor," he begged, "you're the only one left. I've talked to every other doctor there is, and not a single one of them can help me. You're all I have."

"And I'm sorry, Will," said the doctor, breathing a heavy sigh and leaning back into his couch. "I don't have enough money to treat your father. I said this already, didn't I?"

"How much would it cost for you to treat him?" The young man knew he didn't have enough money. No matter how hard he worked, he barely had enough to purchase food for his dying father. Yet he couldn't resist asking anyway, hoping against hope that _maybe _he had just barely enough money to pay for his father's treatment.

"Depends on what I'd need to give him to help him recover. Some of my medicines are more expensive than others, and judging by your father's illness, I'd say it'd cost you about... a thousand gold, maybe."

Will's heart sank. He swallowed around a terrible lump forming in his throat and shook his head. "I don't have that much."

"Then I can't help you," said the doctor, looking away and into the blazing fire. "I really am sorry."

"Please, can't you just -"

"I've already told you," the doctor interrupted, returning his gaze to the young man before him, "I can't help you. I'm sorry, but that's the way it's going to be. You'll figure something out, I promise, but until you have a thousand gold, I can't help your father."

_"Fine. _I'll just go pull a thousand gold out of the air." William clenched his fists and spun on his heel, unable to look the doctor in the eye for a second longer. He feared he'd rush forward and punch the old man right in the center of his face if he saw that fake look of pity in his eyes for a moment longer. He turned the knob of the door, jerked it open, and stepped outside into the cold.

"See you later, Will, and -"

The young man slammed the door shut before the doctor could finish. He gritted his teeth and glared down at his worn leather boots, clenching and unclenching his fists, silently fuming. His mother had already succumbed to the sickness early in the winter; he refused to let his father suffer the same fate.

But where could he possibly get a thousand gold?

_The Miser's Curse._

It was a system of caves, nestled into the farthest reaches of the village, deeper and darker than anything in else in the world - according to the stories, anyway. And Will had heard plenty of stories about it. Supposedly the Miser's Curse was a place where a greedy old miser had hidden his great store of wealth many years ago, hence the place's name. But he never made it back out, because the caves were fraught with danger, and he'd died there, leaving behind all his precious gold and jewels for anybody brave enough to find them.

Surely, if William could find this hidden treasure, there would be plenty of gold to pay for his father's treatment.

But what if the treasure wasn't real? There were plenty of stories about people venturing into the caverns, searching for the gold, and never returning. And the ones that supposedly _had_ returned came back wild-eyed and insane, rambling until the end of their days about the endless darkness of the caves and the evil aura within. Nobody had found the treasure.

But William had never before met one of these supposed survivors. He had never seen anybody return from the Miser's Curse, because nobody was brave enough to go there in the first place. So, what if it was all a legend? What if the caves _didn't _drive people mad? What if they really were filled with treasure, and nobody was courageous enough to find it due to the wealth of awful tales surrounding the place?

_It's my only hope, _the young man thought to himself, pulling his cloak around himself and sighing deeply. His breath came out as a long stream of white air that dissipated into nothingness almost as soon as it had appeared.

So he threw his hood up over his head and veered in the direction that led to the edge of the village, and to the Miser's Curse. His mouth was set into a grim line as he walked, and his green eyes were hard with determination. He would save his father's life, no matter what. He was the only family the young man had left anymore.

* * *

><p>The edge of the village was marked by a steep cliff that dropped off into open sky below. That day in particular, the skies were covered with gray clouds above and below. William walked dangerously close to the edge of the cliff, staring off into the sky surrounding him and marveling at the idea that somewhere out there were thousands of other villages and cities, nestled onto the floating islands. On a clear day he could see just a couple of them, floating in the distance, but today he could only see the gray clouds around him. He thought that perhaps it might snow, and if it did, he wanted to be as far away from the open as possible. He'd had quite enough snow for a lifetime, really.<p>

With each step he took, the snow crunched loudly beneath his boots, and he sank almost shin-deep into it at some points. The snow wasn't this deep back in the village. Was he getting closer to the caves? His heart began to pound at the thought, and he swallowed nervously.

But he was not truly near the caves. Will trudged through the cold for at least another hour, the snow getting ever deeper as he went, and his shuddering growing more intense. Small flakes of snow began to drift down from the sky above him. Where was the Miser's Curse? Of course he had never visited the place before - nobody in his village had. They were too afraid. And so he really had no idea where he was going, and he began to wonder if he was even heading in the correct direction at all.

He would have missed it had he not tripped over it. He was shivering fiercely and his teeth chattering uncontrollably when it happened. One moment he was trudging forward, unhindered save for the deep snow beneath him, and the next moment he was stumbling forward, crying out as he collapsed face-first into the freezing snow. Immediately he stumbled onto his feet again, his front dusted with the fresh white snow, and his pitiful shivering only intensified. He turned around face whatever it was that he had tripped over, only to see a large mound that he had no idea how he'd missed.

Curiously, he walked around the mound, trying to see what it was - only to discover that it was a small cavity in the earth, barely large enough for one person to fit inside, mostly covered by the falling snow. He began to kick away the snow from around it as best as he could, and found an old, small, broken-down wooden sign near the cavity. He leaned down to brush the snow away from its surface, and squinted to read the fading words scrawled onto it.

_Miser's Curse._

That was all there was to the sign. There was no warning that the caves were dangerous. No mention of the stories of riches within. There were only those two words.

William hesitated before the entrance to the caves, his heart hammering. _Am I really going to do this? _he thought to himself with a frown.

As the snow fell from the sky above and quickly piled up around him, he nodded to himself. _I came all this way. I might as well._

So he took a deep breath, got down on his knees, and crawled into the tunnel that led into the Miser's Curse.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Sorry it's short. If you've stuck with me so far, then I would like to thank you for reading. So... thanks!**

**A fair warning in advance - this story has _not _really been planned out, I'm sort of just ****winging it. And usually "just winging it" doesn't work for me, so I cannot promise that I will finish this story. I _can _promise, however, that I at least have the intent to finish it, which really does count for something in my book. :3**

**Another thing - I don't play Pirate101. I used to, years ago, but I haven't touched the game in quite a while and I remember hardly anything about it. Therefore, this story will be quite different from the Pirate101 you know, with the world being vastly different and mostly of my own creation, and same with the characters. I'll only be keeping the core concept, with islands floating in the sky and ships sailing between them, along with pirates thriving and the Armada trying to get rid of them. The only reason I'm really writing this is because, when I used to play Pirate101, the character I created fascinated me. I had a backstory for her and everything, and I loved the personality that I imagined she had. So I wrote a story about her, and William sort of just came into existence alongside her. Unfortunately that story was bad. So I'm rewriting it, completely changing things around and revamping almost everything. Therefore, this story is more personal than anything - I'm not really around to please anyone, I'm just here to have fun writing about two characters I used to love and that I still do.**

**I make no promises to be quick with updates, since I'm currently working on a huge Legend of Zelda story that is eating up most my time. This story is mostly a side-project, something I couldn't resist doing. I had to write about William and a certain other character that will appear later on (hopefully in the next chapter, but I make no promises, since I already stated that I'm winging this).**

**Sorry for that long author's note; hopefully I won't ramble so much in the future. And hopefully my next update will be quick, but we'll see. Thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it - and I love reviews and critique, if you feel so inclined to leave some. c:**


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